The €7.9-million (US$8.9-million), 43-month Lithium Sulfur for Safe Road Electrification (LISA) project will launch 1 January 2019 in Europe. The overall goal is to design and manufacture a lithium-sulfur technology that will enable safe electrification of EV applications.

Due to the fact that Li-ion batteries are still the limiting factor for mass scale adoption of electrified vehicles, there is a need for new batteries that enable EVs with higher driving range, higher safety and faster charging at lower cost. Li-Sulfur is a promising alternative to Li-ion—free of critical raw material (CRM) and non-limited in capacity and energy by material of intercalation.

LISA intends to advance the development of high energy and safe Li-S battery cells with hybrid solid state non-flammable electrolytes validated at a 20Ah cell level. LISA will solve specific Li-S technical bottlenecks on metallic lithium protection, power rate and volumetric energy density—together with cost, which is the main selection criteria for EV batteries. The sustainability of the technology will be assessed from an environmental and economic perspective.

The technology will be delivered ready for use within the corresponding state of charge estimator facilitating battery pack integration.

Today, Li-S is twice as light as Li-ion and has reached only 10% of the sulfur theoretical energy density (2600Wh/kg) at cell prototype level (250-300Wh/kg), with potentially 800Wh/l (600Wh/kg) achievable by improving materials, components and manufacturing.

LISA is strongly oriented to the development of lithium metal protection and solid state electrolyte and will incorporate process concepts enabling integration in future manufacturing lines.

Moreover, the outcome of the project in terms of new materials, components, cells, and processes will be transferable to other lithium-anode based technologies such as Li-ion and solid state lithium technologies.

As such, LISA can have a large impact on existing and next-generation EV batteries, delivering technology with higher energy density beyond the theoretical capacities of chemistries using CRM—i.e. natural graphite and cobalt—or silicon-based chemistries inherently limited by their manufacturability.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement Nº 814471.

Li-sulfur battery developer Oxis Energy is also leading the £7-million Lithium Sulfur Future Automotive Battery (LiSFAB) project, funded by Innovate UK, to transform electric vehicle technology for commercial use. It is developing a next-generation cell and module that is suitable for large electric vehicles such as trucks and buses and will deliver a 400 Wh/kg Li-S cell that will have the significantly improved power and cycle life required by large automotive applications.

This cell will allow buses and trucks to carry considerably more payload and will cost less because of the abundant cell construction materials. State of Charge and State of Health (SoC and SoH) will be improved, along with the manufacturing aspect. The project will look into four areas with OXIS playing a key part in all of them.

On ‘Cell Performance’ OXIS will work with University College London and William Blythe to utilize new materials to improve performance and characterise electrodes and cells using X-ray tomography and other techniques to accelerate development. This aspect of the work will build on past projects that increased cell specific energy (Wh/kg), with further improvements being made to cycle life, power and cell design to meet the performance and safety needs of EVs.

OXIS will also play a key role in ‘Cell Manufacturability’. Working with Ceetak, it will develop crucial pouch cell sealing technology required to make a robust automotive cell whilst BPE will lead the design of a pilot facility for the cells that are developed on this project. OXIS will again team up with University College London to develop a novel, non-invasive X-Ray quality control process for cells.

Collaborating with Cranfield University, the ‘Module Development’ activity, OXIS will build on the control algorithms developed on the Revolutionary Electric Vehicle Battery project in order to better estimate SoC and SoH and create intelligent charging algorithms to improve lifetime. OXIS along with Williams Advanced Engineering will also investigate module construction techniques and cell matching in order to establish a final module.

With all the bickering going on in EU and USA; China, So-Korea and Japan will probably develop and mass produce the next generation affordable/higher performance EV batteries months/years before the West.

Asia will probably be the source of the most affordable mass produced extended range all weather BEVs/FCEVs from 2020 onward.

Lad, you missed the announcement in these pages of LG Chem partnering with Enevate to make Si-dominant anodes, and the investment by Reneault, Nissan and Mitsubishi less than a month later. This train has already left the station, and it's the Japanese and Koreans who are on it. Tesla seems to have been left on the platform.

Speaking of battery innovation using silicon anodes, it was way back in 2013 there was an article here about the battery company, Amprius developing silicon nanowire anodes and earlier this month it was reported that these batteries are now being used in solar HAPS aircraft. It appears to take a long time to go from the lab to production.

Interesting to read the comments from back in 2013. Harvey predicted 5-5-5 batteries within a decade. Although it was never exactly clear to me what those figures meant, I'm guessing that would be a pretty close estimate

EU, USA, China, Japan and So-Korea have the funds, facilities and knowhow to make both future lower cost higher performance batteries and affordable/competitive electrified vehicles. Who will get there first is a good question.

A major Chinese manufacturer claims that higher performance batteries will be mass produced at under $100/KW by 2025 and at under $50/KW by 2030. If so, electrified vehicles may become cheaper than ICEVs sometime between 2025 and 2030?

Yes but what does it mean in precise numbers. My rough guess is that something like 350 kwh/kg, 1500 cycles to 80% capacity reduction, 5C charge rate, at $100/kwh would probably be enough to put EV's over the top.

Look at battery progress the last 10 years, higher capacity and safer but no major breakthroughs. People say they will make a break through any day now and "economies of scale" will drive prices down, there is no real evidence to support that.

Future improved batteries, mass produced in fully automated factories, with abundant lower cost materials, should be around be 2030 or so and will be installed in electrified vehicles costing less than ICEVs and in large storage units for 24/7 REs and stabilized grids.

Note that on top of the deals with Enevate and the carmakers, LG Chem just signed a deal to take 12,000 tpy of LiOH. That's about 3500 tpy of elemental lithium, enough for roughly 50 GWh of cells. Divide by 100 kWh per vehicle and that's enough for 500K vehicles per year.

Granted, some of that is going to go into electronics; a laptop or a phone that can be fully charged in 10 minutes is going to be mighty popular. But DC fast charging is rolling out pretty fast and a battery which can take energy as fast as the fastest chargers can dish it out is going to make the best of the current and near-future infrastructure. If I can see the possibilities from here, you can bet that LG Chem, Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi have gone over them backwards and forwards. BIG things are in the pipeline.

Electricity production and consumption varies enormously from one country to another. Only 13 countries use more the 10,000 kWh/year per capita. On the other hand, over 25 countries use less than 100 kWh/year per capita.

Four countries (China, USA, India and Russia) produce close to 60% of the total electricity in the world. China is the first producer by far with 6.450.000.000.000 kWh/year = 28.5% followed by USA with 19.4%, India with 7 % and Russia with 5.5%.

Over 48% of the electricity produced is from fossil fuels and is one of the major sources of pollution and GHGs.

The ideal solution would be with 2000++ new NPPs but the initial cost and price per kWh is to high to compete.

REs with enough storage to meet essential 24/7 demands should be part of the energy mix. Supply and demand will have to be better managed.